HBO's 'Doll & Em' provides case study in perils of fame, friendship

By Hank Stuever, The Washington Post

Posted:
03/19/2014 01:49:21 PM MDT

Britain's actress Dolly Wells poses during a photocall for a TV show 'Doll & Em' as part of the Mipcom international audiovisual trade show at the Palais des Festivals, in Cannes, southeastern France. (Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images)

Though it's hindered by a particular form of Hollywood myopia that sees the movie business as the only place to find an interesting story, HBO's new comedy miniseries “Doll & Em” is nevertheless an awkwardly funny and occasionally heartbreaking attempt to peel back the many meanings and layers of friendship.

“Em” here is Emily Mortimer (“The Newsroom”), who, like “Matt LeBlanc” and “James Van Der Beek,” adds “Emily Mortimer” to the list of actors playing a suggestion of their famous selves. Here, Em is a busy film actress temporarily living in Los Angeles and getting ready to shoot the lead role in a film everyone is describing as a “female 'Godfather.' ”

She gets a despondent, middle-of-the-night call from her lifelong friend in London, Doll (Dolly Wells), who has just broken up with her boyfriend and is inconsolable. Impulsively, generously, Em flies Doll out to L.A. and, unwisely, hires her to be her personal assistant.

From there, a melancholy ritual plays out in six short episodes, less “All About Eve” and more along the lines of a meaty advice column: Dear Carolyn — I bought my miserable BFF a plane ticket to come live with me and gave her a job as my assistant and now she's mad that I'm bossing her around. What did I do to deserve her ingratitude?

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Conceived and written by Mortimer and Wells, and drawn from who-knows-(or cares)- what aspects of their own friendship, “Doll & Em” mines the discomfort and envy between the two women, caused mainly by celebrity's powerful undertow. In Em, Doll sees someone who has everything (including a husband and kids waiting for her in New York). In Doll, Em sees a wounded bird and mistakenly believes the cure somehow rests in sending Doll on multiple errands and Starbucks runs.

As it turns out, Doll's naivete is laced with ambition, the sort of hunger that has her rifling through swag baskets before Em has a chance to claim them or befriending people in Em's fame circle (including John Cusack and Chloe Sevigny, also riffing on themselves).

Predictably, it isn't long before Doll is upsetting the physical laws of the star/assistant dynamic, siphoning attention from Em and setting her sights on surpassing Em's career. This eerie sense of personal trespassing is heightened for the viewer when you realize, probably by design, that Doll (or Dolly Wells or “Dolly Wells”) is a much more intriguing and flawed character than Emily Mortimer in any guise.

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